Study: Lost Laptops Cost Businesses Billions of Dollars

Posted 12/03/2010 at 7:39am | by Paul Lilly

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According to a new survey, U.S. businesses are losing billions of dollars due to lost and stolen laptops. Intel, along with the Ponemon Institute, pinged 329 organizations as part of what's been dubbed "The Billion Dollar Lost-Laptop Study," and found that collectively those polled had lost more than 86,000 laptops worth around $2.1 billion.

"Looking at these results, you can barely fathom the significant financial impact of missing laptops," said Anand Pashupathy, general manager, Intel Anti-Theft Services. "More astonishing, considering the vulnerability of laptops and their data is that the majority of these companies aren't taking even basic precautions to protect them."

By "majority," Pashupathy is talking about two-thirds of those polled admitting they don't take any security measures, such as encryption, back-ups, and anti-theft mechanisms.

So where exactly did all these laptops go with their data goldmines? Just 25 percent ended up stolen, at least confirmed as such (another 15 percent were suspected of being swiped), while a staggering 60 percent just went missing, as in lost.

Study Details (PDF)